Life & Wisdom Quote by John Clayton

Clayton opens with a dare disguised as a polite question: what if the central figure of Christianity is closer to Zeus than to history? The line works because it frames belief as an intellectual problem rather than a private comfort. By placing "merely" before "mythological creation", he compresses a whole scandal into a single adverb, implying not only fabrication but a kind of embarrassing category error for the faithful.

The second sentence is a strategic appeal to authority, but not the cheap kind. "Exercised many great minds" tries to launder a culturally volatile question through academia: if serious scholars wrestle with it, then it isn't just edgy disbelief or devotional reflex. That move also signals Clayton's intended audience - readers who want permission to doubt, or at least to investigate, without being cast as hostile. He presents inquiry as respectable, almost inevitable.

Calling it the "dominant issue" in New Testament studies during "this century" situates the quote in the era when historical-Jesus research, form criticism, demythologizing, and debates over sources and genre reshaped biblical scholarship. The subtext is not simply "Is Jesus real?" but "Which Jesus are we talking about: the theological Christ of worship, or a reconstructable figure of history?" Clayton is pressing on that fault line, where faith claims meet the methods of modern historical critique - and where both sides fear what a definitive answer might cost.